Philadelphia Museum Focuses On Death Of The `Titanic`

October 6, 1985|By William K. Stevens, The New York Times

PHILADELPHIA — Two blocks east of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, tucked away in a ground-floor gallery of the Philadelphia Maritime Museum, there is a lesser known but equally riveting pilgrimage point for a few of the millions drawn to this city by the history it embodies and displays.

Others, unsuspecting visitors in search of rest for both the brain and the feet, often stumble into the little gallery by accident. And then they begin to look around and come to attention. They grow quiet, speaking almost in whispers as they look, read and surrender to the enduring fascination of the death of the Titanic.

Here is the official service record of Frederick Fleet, the lookout who first saw the iceberg that found the supposedly unsinkable Titanic`s vulnerable spot, sending her to the bottom on April 15, 1912, with the loss of more than 1,500 lives. The document records simply that Fleet`s service aboard the Titanic ended that day, and bears the explanatory note, ``at sea.``

Over there is a broken deck chair, plucked from the North Atlantic, draped with a life jacket used by Ava Astor, wife of John Jacob Astor. In another display case, a ``Marconigram`` from the steamship Amerika warns the Titanic of icebergs. In yet another reposes the repertory of the Titanic`s band. It included Glow Worm and The Teddy Bears` Picnic.

Once again, the mystique of the Titanic, rooted in what was perhaps the most gripping sea tragedy of modern times, has engaged the nation`s imagination -- and focused new attention on the little gallery at the Maritime Museum. Perhaps nowhere else in the world is the story of the Titanic told in more detail and more authentically than in the collection of artifacts, photographs, paintings, narratives and other lore owned by the Titanic Historical Society and permanently stored and displayed here since 1982.

The museum`s Philadelphia location ``from our point of view, is absolutely ideal,`` says Charles Haas, a Randolph, N.J., schoolteacher who is president of the society, a 22-year-old organization that boasts thousands of members in 25 countries.

Philadelphia is a major tourist magnet, Haas said. The Maritime Museum`s offer to house the collection was ``warm`` and ``exciting.`` The museum`s small size insured that the Titanic exhibit would not be swallowed up.

Since Sept. 1, when the Titanic herself was discovered on the ocean bottom by explorers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a new sense of excitement and anticipation has pervaded both the society and the museum. The displays have taken on new impact for those who visit it with murmurs of ``unbelievable`` and ``amazing,`` and surprise that some supposed truths about the Titanic are really myths.

Contrary to legend, for instance, the ship`s band did not play Nearer My God to Thee as the ship sank. It played a hymn called Autumn, and before that, American ragtime. Nor did the ship`s builders proclaim her unsinkable. That title was conferred on her by the press, and became an inseparable part of the legend after the sinking.

Nor was the sea stormy that terrible night, as it has been depicted in paintings and movies. Rather, the North Atlantic was described as ``polished glass,`` and ``a mill pond.`` Nor was there any dancing that night. British ships did not allow it on Sundays.

No matter. The mystique survives and prevails.

``One factor,`` says Haas, ``is that the Titanic story can be approached so many different ways: as maritime history, as a sociological study, as a psychological study of the way people work under pressure. Some have approached it from an ESP standpoint, precognitions and all that.

``The basic story line is every bit as dramatic as a piece of fiction,`` he said. ``There was a large range of people on board, and often you find one particular person you can identify with. In my case it was Lawrence Beasley, who was a schoolteacher like myself.`` Beasley was one of the survivors.

Not least among the enduring elements of fascination has been the sinking`s sharp symbolism of the end of the 19th century age of optimistic faith in inevitable technological progress. God may not have gone down with the Titanic, as the last line in one of the most recent Titanic movies has it, but a dominant Western way of looking at the world might have.

And so the visitors come to the gallery, to learn more about the great ship that sailed to her death with what the exhibit calls ``naive haughtiness.``

Haas, who hopes with others that the great wreck will be left undisturbed, confesses excitement about the prospect of new knowledge about the tragedy, and of new photographs, possibly, for the exhibit here.

``It is still an unfolding story,`` he said. ``Seventy-three years later, we are still learning things about that ship.``